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Prairie Lotus

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Prairie Lotus
By Linda Sue Park
Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. 261 p.

Hanna is excited to (hopefully) stop moving around the west with her Papa. Papa seems to want to settle in the new town of LaForge in the Dakota Territory; however, that isn’t the only thing that Hanna wants. She also wants to go to school—just like Mama would have wanted. This is a tall order seeing how it is April of 1880 and most people in the new settlement don’t like anyone who isn’t white, and Hanna’s Mama was Chinese so Papa isn’t sure that folks will welcome Hanna to school. This is a brilliant story that takes place in a town based off of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, only it is told with eyes wide open to the discrimination that many different ethnicities faced in the times. The true star of the book is Hanna—Hanna with her determination, grit, and quiet elegance. Hanna is a character that readers will want to read and get to know.
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